Rangel: Spending Cuts Will Disproportionately Hurt Black Jobs

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) took to the House floor and issued a stern warning to his fellow lawmakers on Thursday, saying that spending cuts will disproportionately hurt African Americans working in the public sector, according to the Hill. The comments reportedly came amid increasingly rancorous debt-ceiling talks. Rangel cited jobs as teachers and police officers, among others in the public sector.

"And so many African Americans, for reasons that I do not have to go into, have sought public service as a way of life because of the security that's involved in it," Rangel said on the House floor, according to the Hill's Floor Action Blog. "And so, when we talk about cutting the budget and cutting the services that are provided, we're talking about a larger number of minorities that would be losing their jobs as a result of budget cutting.”